Friday, October 29, 2010

What is perfection? Where do you find perfection, who holds perfection? I would like to approach the visual aspect of this, for I'm sure it would be easy to just say, "No! Looks aren't everything" at any moment of this and I agree with that. Maybe these questions should be reworded; what does perfection look like, where would you find what looks perfect, and who holds the perfect appearance?

There's the golden ratio, and the idea of just having a lack of imperfection. What does this all mean though? When have you achieved perfection in art, in beauty, in theory?

The golden ratio is a ratio that is nice to look at, to state it simply. I'm not very familiar with it and even though I linked to an article about it I haven't read it recently (I read it once, but it was a fair time back) I will try to express my understanding of it. The golden ratio is when the width is a certain proportion of the height, or vice versa. Due to something in the way it looks, it appears to just look ascetically pleasing to the human eye (I wonder if it looks nice to other animals?). This is also a ratio that is commonly found in nature.

As for the concept of lacking imperfection. That is fairly straight forward too. If there is a lack of anything to distract you from the beauty beneath possible blemishes, you do not need to worry about observing those blemishes. My mind keeps wandering this idea back to faces. If you have no acne (not me) and the same face, you are going to look better than when you do have acne (definitely me, but I really don't mind all that much). In the case of faces this may be true always (well every situation I can think of) though perhaps not in art. Sometimes a little bit of dirt over something will make it look better than if it has been cleaned. A grunge look is always nice if done right, in art and nature. So what does it mean to look perfect regarding imperfection? It means you have no imperfection that draw your attention away from what is beneith them.

Now for the last question I presented. Who looks perfect? Well your mind may quickly jump to a loved one or someone who always catches your eye when he or she walks by you but I have a more cliche ending in mind. Sure this person or people you may of thought of may apear perfect, but only to you.

What would you consider to be normal? What would you consider to be average. I think due to media, what is actually normal or average is looked to be bad. It has become to look undesirable to be average looking, you must look better than everyone you can in today's society. I don't agree with this, I don't think it's true, though this is a general observation. The status quo sates you should look amazing, in order to be average. With everyone looking amazing, does that not just bring the average up? It does a bit, however this will hit a ceiling affect and soon enough people will hit their maximum pretty aspect (or handsome, if you are male and consider the phrase pretty to be feminine only). This is counteracted by the fact style and what is considered to look amazing shifts and changes over time, but that is going into culture more so and I'm getting off topic.

Back to that one person you thought of when I mentioned who is perfect? I'm sure everyone who read this thought of someone. Consider them in great detail, do they really look all that great? Around grade seven I realized that if you just remove hair from some one's head they look completely different. I would put my hand up so I could only see their face and I realized how unfamiliar some people's faces were. A few years later I remembered that and out of curiosity tried this again. Some people who you think look amazing are not always as phenomenal as you think, if you study them closely enough. Some people turn out to be vibrant always, but I always wonder how much work they put into it? I don't think anyone should put work into how they look, everyone should present themselves as who they are.

So you may of found out that this person who you are observing has the perfect dimensions to their face, and their skin is clear as water. You may of found out they are not perfect, but do you care? If you do (ah, this may sound a bit cruel) but grow up a bit and don't be superficial. For all those who answered no, good job, you're winning at life. Now I would like you to consider someone who you think is not all that great?

Do you think that everyone will agree with you? When you state that someone does not look good, that is a matter of opinion. The individual you picked, who you may or may not found out they are not as amazing looking as they appear (ooh, paradox? My English class is actually teaching me this year), may still look amazing to you. Perhaps even perfect despite their flaws. That is just your opinion though. Maybe someone thinks the person you have picked to be perfect, is not as perfect as you think? Everyone thinks someone looks perfect, someone will always think you look perfect.

With everyone thinking someone is perfect, perhaps even many people, then someone will always think you look perfect. Perhaps many people do also. You look perfect, you are perfect.

The only loop hole in this could be regarding self reflection, but all I have to say is no matter how much work you put into your looks you will never look perfect to yourself. Humans are far too self critical, we always want to be better. This is true often even if we have achieved the best in something. Don't leave your own opinion to judge if you appear well in others eyes because you don't see through those eyes. Let them see through their eyes and let them tell you what they think. If they think negatively on you, that's their loss. It's nothing against you. You have no need to aim to please, it is a want that comes with the desire to be socially acceptable. Even if you do not reach the status quo, you will probably still be accepted. If not, message me. I'm sure I'll see you to be perfectly acceptable but you'll never know until you try. (Does blogger even have a messaging system? I'm on Twitter, Posterous, Youtube; a few links can be found here, links to everything off my posterous. I'll get a message if you send it to me eventually.)

So who's perfect? You are, so go forth and be perfect by doing nothing more or nothing less than you do now. If you feel you want to do more or less, I won't stop you. Just keep this in mind, everyone is beautiful and everyone is perfect. Even amongst grime and grunge, art and perfection can be found, and even though spots so small they won't be found unless you are looking for them, no one will notice them but you.

Now onto video games. What a great transition, don't you think so?

I've spent a fair amount of time playing video games, a fair portion of that being first person shooters. One of my favorite first person shooters is a PC game called WarRock, it is all online in real time, it can be downloaded for free, played for free, and always for free. You will be encouraged to buy into it though, because if you do you may get better guns, more maps, and a couple other advantages. With some skill you can still win a match without having premium. I know I do when I play, however I haven't played for a while.

If you would like to look me up on it, my user name on it is Bugworld, but you won't find anything exciting around that name. I'm in a slightly active clan, have no guns at the moment (only default, you earn in game money by playing the game and you can use that to buy better guns if you don't want to spend real cash), and have not been online for a while.

In every first person shooter (well almost) you will run into what is called a KDR. That's Kill to Death Ratio for all you video game illiterates, and those who have lives away from electronics. It's a ratio of how many kills you get in one life (or how many lives it takes you to get one kill). Some games will have a positive negative system, some will just stick to a positive only. I prefer the positive only but I'll explain both.

The positive negative system deals with do you have more kills or more deaths? If you have more kills, your kills are divided by your deaths. If you have more deaths, you deaths are divided by your kills (and multiplied by negative 1). Something to be noted is your KDR in a system like this will always be less than negative one or more than positive one.

My preferred system involves all numbers being positive. A KDR of 1 means you have the same number of kills and deaths. You always divide your kills by your deaths, so if you have 0.02 (I've seen this before..) you need to find a new game. Many people will say you have a negative KDR if it is under 1 when you use this system.

What is considered a good kdr (I decided no more caps on it) varies from game to game, and I am basing this only off WarRock because it is the only real time online game I play. When looking at the kdr's of the people I play with, I notice numbers higher than one are very common but numbers less than one are less common. I understand this could be because there are some people with very high kdr's (well anything above 3 is considered great and the people who have over 6ish are amazing) but it seems like it should balance out.

In theory, if everyone stayed active so their kills and deaths were all counted, wouldn't it average out to one? That was a fair bit of lead up for that statement but that's all I wanted to say. Hmm, I was expecting more to this. Anyone else noticed kdr's seem to hover higher than the what-should-be-average one?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

I originaly put this on Facebook, before I was using Blogger. How disappointing to think I use to do such a thing, oh well. In conversation with my girlfriend today, I remembered this (anyone else think it's odd that things like this come up in our every day conversation?) and decided it would be much better on my Blog instead of.. pfft.. Facebook. I think if I was to rewrite this it would be much more lengthy with a few parts expanded but I decided to leave it as it is.

Also, before you get reading I would like to request that people actually read my 4100 word post. It can be found here. May I suggest reading it in sections? For this posts suggested reading, I would like to suggest you read the first four paragraphs. I would like to say the first five, almost six actually, but I think four is a reasonable amount. It looks to be a small read for me, the first four or five that is, however the seventh paragraph is where the story starts. That why I think up to six should be read. It's all up to you, that is all I have to say about it. If you want to read more, go for it. If you want to read less, I would love for you to do so also. If you wish to read it all, please drop a comment but only if you had any thoughts, questions, misunderstandings, or anything to add through the entire time. Even just one moment of, "Hmm, but I think..." must be noted in order for you to consider your reading worth while. If you don't your reading has been a waste possibly, and I know you wouldn't enjoy that. Have a nice day; or ever better than leaving you could take a glance at this first. Then have a nice day ^__^

I've spent a couple hours.. wait. Now that I look at the time a few hours on xkcd and was sent a link to this comic http://xkcd.com/710/ and of course wanted to understand what it was based on so Googled it and found a Wikipedia page, was quick to get into a discussion on how it worked and by the end the person who I was explaining it to had take a leave of absence from their computer but was kind enough to leave their MSN signed in so I may continue typing but now I have the desire to post it here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjectureIn the Wikipedia article there is a mention of someone offering $50 for a solution to this.. misfortunate he's dead?A long time ago when my mind was wandering during math class the pattern of even and odd numbers when you add, subtract, multiply and divide them occurred to me. I think I may of almost found a useful .

Anyways, the rules are if the number is even you divide by two. If the number is odd you multiply by three then add one. No matter what number you start with, you will (theoretical) always end up with a 1). This is limited whole numbers larger than 0 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5... etc)

This through this before reading.. I'm curious to see other people's ideas? Once I’m done I'm going to tag a handful of people who may have a slight chance of being interested if I remember.

First I will look over the second rule, regarding odd numbers. When you take an odd number and multiply it by three you will always run into an odd number. By adding one you will have an even number. This leads you to always having an even number after an odd number, every time you have an odd number the number increases, however now to look at the first rule.

Every time you have an even number you divide by two, this will reduce the number. It will not reduce the number more than the second rule has in the previous step (ex. 5 -> 16 - > 8) but it will have a 1 in 2 chance of being even again. This is because every second number that is even (2, 8, 12, 16.. etc) divided by two is an odd number and that leaves every first number to be even. This means the number will reduce again. After you do this there is another 1 in 2 chance that the number you now have will be even and then reduce.

To recap and probably simplify.. this means when ever you have an odd number the next number will be even. Then you have a 1 in 2 chance of the number being even. If the number is even it will go down again.

Back to the example with more numbers and some explanation.. 5 -> 16 -> 8 . This is an odd, then an even, then another even. If you continue it.. 8 -> 4 -> 2-> 1 After the 8 is another even number, then another, then a 1. The larger the number you start with, the higher the chance is that it will be odd more often until you run into one of the numbers that are 2^x (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 246.. etc) The reason the chance of you running into one of these numbers is less when starting higher numbers is the higher you go the more spaced out these numbers are. 8 and 16 have a difference of 8 only, however the difference between 128 and 236 is 128, and if you continue this pattern a few times you can run into 32,768 and 65,536 having a difference of 32,768

Monday, October 25, 2010

In my Digital Media class I was given a paper today, the first one for a long time. I haven't been given the piles of paper I was promised I would be given at the beginning of the year, as I always am told. I have always had a lack of paper given to me also. Maybe I just see it to be not so much paper. My Psychology class is given more paper, much more paper. On top of that we have to actually read it in most cases in this class; opposed to just note this go play with Photoshop.

We were given a green paper titled Love Thy Enemy, by Jacob Holdt. All credit for what will be quoted goes to him. I intend on typing this all out and once I get a chance I will reply to it all, paragraph by paragraph. I was not told to do this, but the reading caught my attention on my first look though. I hope by typing it out I will read it with more depth. Lets get started.

"It is easy to be kind to people who are kind to us, to people who radiatesurplus energy and good will and to people whom we like, but what would theworld look like if we were to try being kind to our enemies, to people who havebeen deeply scarred or marginalized in their upbringing, to people who don'tlike or who we have every reason to fear?"

It is easy to be kind to those who are kind to us, so instead of looking for the people who are kind just be kind yourself. Then you will not need to look for those who are kind, they will become apparent through your life. You will be sought after and due to your kindness others will appreciate you. By being kind yourself, you may have reason to dislike or fear others, however they may have no reason to dislike or fear you.

"As a traveler, I have had a chance to try that out through my long-standingpolicy of saying yes to everyone I meet on my way - without exception, to say"no" - to turn your back on even a single individual, is to participate in thesystematic marginalization of human beings."

I think not saying no would be an incredibly difficult activity, even in my daily life. The concept of refusal is there for a reason, and ignoring it could have negative results. If you say yes to everyone however, considering what they are asking of you, it would create a very positive environment. To be the person people count on for help you will help so many, and is that not one interpretation of life? By helping others you help yourself, for if you ignore others perhaps there is no reason to enhance your life.

"Saying yes to the people you meet can, on the face of it, resemble a kind ofselfless generosity of a neighbor, like the good Samaritan, but the startingpoint is and should always be one's own selfish interest: you simply denyyourself invaluable adventures by saying no to people who challenge you, youdeny yourself, perhaps out of a fear for your personal safety, but these are thebarriers that divide us."

The good Samaritan is a story of someone helping someone else because they had a need, despite prejudice between the nationality of the two individuals involved. It is a story of helping because someone needs help, not because they are of the same nationality as you (nationality could be replaced with any term relating to groupings or denominations of humans). To deny yourself for personal safety may be a good idea at times however if there is no risk to yourself that is great why say no? Step out, take a challenge. The concept of if it doesn't kill you, it will only make you stronger is perhaps not the best idea but if it is taken non-literally it may help you with this idea of not saying no. Your own selfish interests may help you, but you will find the victory of helping others is just as good as helping yourself (if not better) and will benefit the individual you are assisting.

"Displaying kindness and openness toward the very people who directly challengeor frighten us is simply the best way to guarantee our own survival."

Another statement that should not be taken literally, however it does address confrontation. Confrontation is not a bad thing, it is an opportunity. How it unfolds is up to you. I didn't consider confronting those who frighten us in the previous paragraphs however it is just a case of facing your fears. As for this guaranteeing our own survival, perhaps this is looking at the human race as a whole. I think taking up all challenges may just weed out the weeker of our species, the natural selection look of things (however natural selection no longer applies to humans I beleive), though as for individuals it is a different story. There are many challenges that confront us every day and we choose to work through them or avoid them without conscious thought. If a challenge is not to monumental, why avoid it?

"There is not a single person in the world you need to be afraid of (cars youneed to watch out for, but not people). Early on my travels, I began to freemyself from a paralyzing fear of 'otherness.' Since then it has been a truemiracle to travel, all the positive time I spent with the many inhabitants ofghettos has helped me to see the humanity behind the threat."

It's not the gun that kills you, it's not the drop that snaps your bones. It's the bullet, it's the fall. People don't kill you, the cars they are driving do? I think cars should be looked at as a metaphor for physical threats, not just cars. The concept of otherness could be the fear of the unfamiliar. In particular the fear of unfamiliar individuals and situations. Once you are past a fear of those who you do not know there is no reason to have a fear of traveling, there is only opportunity in the act.

"When you stop fearing others, the doors open up for you to a universe trulywithout borders. To show people trust is to declare your love, all people arestarving for love and affection, even the most dangerous or threatening peoplewho are held captive by a hunger for love."

I can't say I have much to add to this. When I started typing I just thought,'hmm, see last reply' though it seemed to go off in a different direction.

"If we are to create a world without crime and terrorism, we must embrace theanger behind it all, to try to be kind to the marginalized people of the worldrather than further marginalizing them with our unfounded fears of them."

I'm starting to enjoy the word marginalize, though I don't quite grasp what it means. I'll take a look in the nearest dictionary soon. To create a world without crime and terrorism means we all must have the same views, in specific the same views around what is crime and terrorism. I just can't see that being possible at the moment, or any time soon. What is right and wrong varies too much from culture to culture to say there is no crime in the world by every one's opinion. Crime is not put in place for its reasons, however there is reason to it being there (if that makes sense). The reason there is crime is because it is not needed for the whole of society but it is needed, used by the few. As for the marginalized, why are they as so? The unfounded fear that is mentioned is the prejudice that so many hold. To abolish this prejudice is to create a world closer to having no crime and terrorism, and have no fear of the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar being the marginalized, the discriminated, the minority.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

This Saturday morning I decided to flip on my TV and kill some time before I actually got up and out of bed. I quickly found there was nothing that caught my attention after flipping through my forty or so channels, so I stopped at TV listings and waited for it to slowly scroll through all it would.

On a channel I usually don't watch, forty-nine I beleive, I noticed there were Saturday morning cartoons playing. At the moment it was a few minutes into an episode of Dragonball Z Kai, I debated for a moment then found my way to the show.

I was disappointed it was not Dragonball Z (the second in the series I beleive), and what would be even better Dragonball (the original series). Despite this I decided to continue watching, it looked to be in the same animation style as Dragonball Z.

The first few lines of dialogue that I heard were something along the lines of, "six.. seven.. eight thousand.." "What?" At this point I was getting excited waiting for an "Over 9000" line, but decided I missed it for there was no way the one episode that features that line was going to playing. Even less likely I would simply change the Chanel and run into it.

And with me watching the original footage I discovered my dialogue was far off. Something closer to, "Vegeta, what does it say about his power level?" "IT'S OVER 9000!!!" Though I discovered in the original Japanese it was "over 8000," but I'm use to the 9000 remark so I will stick to it when referencing to this.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A few days ago I had a very interesting moment. I have done a fair amount of reading about how the brain works and how memories work recently, and I am not sure if this is what inspired the moment or just allowed me to understand it more so. This has actually happened a couple times recently, no more than three times within the past two weeks. The first time this happened within this time frame has been the most memorable and at the moment it is all I can recall.

Before I explain it, I would just like to note how I find it odd that I can recall having the thought, but cannot remember what it was. I remember an event however only the fact it happened, few details about it, and what is was similar to. One way to look at recollection may be as a file on a computer. Before I continue with this, I'm going to note this idea is all theoretical and not original. When you first experience something you save it as a memory. Then when you think of this memory, when you recall it you are not experiencing the experience again. You are only opening the file. Every time you open a file it changes slightly (lets say the file is a .jpeg, because that type of file degrades a little every time you open it), and then when it changes it the changes are automatically saved. That means the next time you recall this memory you are recalling the memory and the slight change of it, along with another slight change. This could be why it seems every time a story is told it changes slightly. Of course this theory could be wrong and every time you remember something you could be directly recalling the original experience. Maybe if you are recalling the original experience, the more time that has past since the experience the less accurate the recollection is.

This interesting moment I had occurred when watching a video. In the video the young boy was missing his two front teeth, and for a moment I remembered what it was like to be missing my front teeth. I could imagine how it felt to have the oddly large feeling gap in my mouth, the texture of my gums even. I'm not sure how long this lasted, but soon as I was curious enough to feel where the space would be my tounge encountered my front teath and the moment was over. It was interesting none the least.

This seemed like more than just a regular memory, it was almost like an illusion? It's hard to describe. For a moment it was not as if I was remembering the moment, but experiencing it slightly.

At this point I almost wish I could have a three dimensional entry, the flow of the reading could be split right here to my next three points because I feel they could all fit in here equally. I'm sure after putting them into words there will be a better way to present them, but for now that is my opinion. Anyone else ever thought of this? I think it would be an interesting way to present an essay of sorts. To put it into Macromedia Flash (8, for that is the version I am familiar with) and have it scrolling. As you scrolled to this point you could not just scroll up and down, but forward and back between the layers of points.

What inspired me to put this together (I had plans on writing a different entry today but won't have time to do so, so I will put it off for another day yet again) was a moment today. Recently I have taken a liking to apples, after not liking them for a long time. I had been hungry and had decided I needed to try to put my fruit and vegetables in my diet (again, my previous attempts at this never stuck) and found an apple in my fridge. It made sense to try it to see if I would like the way it tasted this time. In fact I did. The next day my girlfriend was over and mentioned she was hungry, so I cut up an apple and some cheese for a tasty snack. The days past that I continued to eat apples when I saw them, and soon found myself seeking them out. I still have been doing so.

Upon getting home I grabbed an apple and my Rubik's cube, and began to consume one with my left hand and scramble with the right. I'm sure you can figure out what was in each hand. Doing both took longer than normal, and solving after scrambling was slower than most of my already slow one handed solves. Eventually I got a slight rhythm regarding when I would bite and when I would spin. As I continued to eat I got to the point where there was little flesh left on the apple, but still enough to continue picking at it. Eating around the regions where I would apply my fingers to hold it in place, and biting into the core more and more to see how close I could get to the seeds without actually consuming them. I dislike it when I get a seed in my mouth, they don't taste as good as I wish they would. For the longest time as a child I wouldn't eat apples to their fullest. I thought the core was hard and not to be eaten, and it would take me a very long time to eat what I considered to be the edible region. I'm not sure what inspired this, but I never questioned it at the time.

Upon looking at the skeleton of the fruit; with the stem sticking up and a slight green skirting around it's base, with the odd knobby piece at the bottom with similar skin still intact, and the more vibrant green veins of the middle of it leaving spaces for hollows where seeds resign I had a vivid memory. It was of my father holding an apple he had been eating, with the core of it exposed. I didn't picture his face or any other features, just the core of it. The image of the apple must of resembled the image within my memory closely enough to trigger it involuntarily.

It was a very vivid memory, but very short lived. It occurred as a thought, and I continued to think about it after it occurred. I will touch more on thoughts later on to this, and you may realize more about this. In this recollection of my father holding the apple I did not picture anything more than the appearance of the apple, in specific the core of it. I did not have any visualisation of anything more than the apple, though somehow still related it to my father. I'm not sure how this is entirely but I may have an idea. This memory was caused due to an external stimulus (the apple's appearance) and I think it may of been so vivid due to the similarity to the remembered image. All that was seen was the apple, nothing more. With this there was nothing more for me to remember so clearly, however there was something I could relate to what I was seeing. My brain searched though the library that we all have called our memory for a similar image, and quickly landed on a moment where there was an apple of very similar resemblance.

This searching happens at great speed. A search on Google for the word why took 0.09 seconds to find its results, that may seem fairly quick though to put it in perspective it means that search can be done eleven times in just under one second. The speed your brain processes is much greater than that. To put it into a how many searches a second, theoretically there is no limit. This is another point that will make sense further into this. Also 6,410,000,000 results were found. This may not be as much as it seems, for your brain my have much more information to search though.

Back to the memory. This image of the apple reminded my brain of a memory and then I remembered this memory that I was just reminded of. This remembering may of been so vivid because it may have relation to 'deja vu.' This could be a long shot, although that book I've referenced so many times (Is There Life After Death by Anthony Peake) does a fairly good job at explaining a few different ideas regarding what deja vu may be. One concept is a memory is triggered by something being so exact to a memory, the memory that you remember is played over what you are viewing at the moment. This may seem odd, but it is more possible than it sounds. Essentially, I may of had a moment of deja vu.

Now to go back to the first moment, featuring remembering what it felt like to be missing my two front teath. This, along with the apple incident, may of been closely related to apathy. Apathy is the concept of feeling what you observe other people feeling. If someone is sad, you are likely to slip into a less positive emotional state. You may also do the same if you are around someone who is happy. If someone hurts themselves, you can image how the pain would feel. If someone even describes a painful moment you may wince at it. I think this may be why people often want to turn away when they know something terrible is going to happen, they don't want to 'experience' themselves. By experience, I mean just that. The concept of apathy goes deeper than just emotions or feeling pain.

When someone does something it will cause part of their brain to activate. If you observe them doing this the same parts of your brain will light up. This was discovered by German (I think) scientists who were monitoring what parts of the brain lit up as a monkey tried to open a nut. The monkey failed to do so. At the same time, a scientist walked into the room, picked up a nut, opened it and ate it. The monkey's brain lit up just as it would if it had opened the nut itself. This happy accident, serendipity I beleive it's called, was the first clue into how apathy works on more than the observable level.

By the way, the monkey story I became familiar with from a RSA Animate video about apathy. Look up RSA, they explain some really interesting things and draw out what they are talking about. It's a great way to learn, the visual makes it really easy to follow along more complicated issues.

To relate this to the moment where I could feel the space in my mouth that wasn't actually there at the time; when you observe something parts of your brain are activated just as if you did that. This may be one factor into why seeing things may cause you to remember something else. As I watched the boy in the video I was both reminded of not having teath in the front of my mouth and had an apathetic moment. This caused my memory to be more than the usual memory, it was much more real. My idea around this is a bit loose and open for opinion but I think this is quite possible. Especially with combination of what a memory is.

When you remember something, what is it you are remembering? Is it a chain of words forming a sentence? Probably not. You think through a memory with much more speed than a speedy speaker would be able to describe. Do you see it? Well, you might. This is common in dreams perhaps, but when you are conscious you are not really seeing your memory. You may be able to imagine it, but you aren't seeing. Your sense of sight is still being used by the photons that are currently entering your eyes that reflect what is happening at the current moment of time. You do not smell, taste, or feel the memory either. Well... you could be doing all of this. I forgot to mention hearing. Just assume it follows the same model as the other senses.

What is a memory? As you are conscious you are constantly recording everything. You are recording everything that your senses can perceive. Everything you notice, and even what you don't is put away into your brain to be stored until it could be needed. That is a lot of information. I'm not able to find a constant answer to how much information your brain can hold, though I'm running into estimates of 10^15 to 10^20 bytes. A couple other sites have said around three terabytes (but I think that's fairly low). One or two have said 1 to 1000 terabytes (maybe a bit too broad of a scale). What ever the actual number is, it will vary from person to person. The brain most likely does not remember information in the same way as a computer so putting it into bytes may not be reasonable. However it is, I'm sure you can see how immense the sea of information that may be stored away is. With this in mind, it is quite easy to consider the idea that we record everything we ever see, smell, touch, taste, hear, maybe even think?

So what is a memory? A memory is a recollection of all of what you were experiencing at the moment that you are remembering. You can remember everything that you experienced at that moment, though you are just likely to focus on one aspect of it, how something looked or heard. You may of been more aware of one aspect at the time your brain recorded it, so when you remember that one aspect stands out more. The reason you suppress much of your memory and do not remember all of it, is so that your brain is not overloaded. Recently I read that if you activate more than two or three percent of your brain you will become unconscious. I am sceptical of this, but there could be some truth to it. I think the numbers are much higher, and like everything brain related, it will change from person to person. It's a good thing you don't remember every little aspect of your memories with this concept. Passing out every time anything reminded you of anything would be.. inconvenient. Proof that everything you ever experience is recorded can be found in multiple experiments done by.. well I forget their name but I might look it up later and put it in here.

So with all that confusion out of the way, what is a thought? Essentially, well I'm not sure. I would like to say a thought is a concept, an abstract concept . A thought 'looks like' neurons firing in your brain, sending signals to other part of the brain. A interesting thought surrounding this is does your brain cause consciousness through doing this, or is consciousness the reason this happens? Are thoughts voluntary or involuntary?

I beleive the answer is both. Just like a memory you can have something stimulate you and cause it to happen, or you can purposely think about it and remember it. A thought can be spontaneous or you can cause it to occur.

How many thoughts can you have at the same time? I think there is no limit to this. It all depends on your concentration. Try a little game I use to play when I was much younger. I wanted to see how many things I could think at once and now that I look back on it, it was incredibly useful to my ponderings I have. I would try to think about a solid hum, just an uninterrupted 'hmm' noise. On top of that I would think through the alphabet, and to make things even more complicated I would try to consider how many things I was thinking about. I'm sure it's possible to continue adding onto this. Another similar activity I tired once was to listen to music (with lyrics), say something else out loud (not related to the music), and write something else (also not related to the music or the speaking). It is amazingly difficult. I find music can be very distracting, especially with lyrics. I struggle to listen to music and read something out loud often. Even reading it silently can prove difficult at times. The same goes for writing but it is a bit easier. I think this is an activity that can be learned but I don't intend on practicing.

I'm starting a lot of these new paragraphs with a question. This is another one, likely to be the last however. How long does it take for a thought to occur? I'll give you a moment or two to think it over. How many thoughts have you had in the time it's taken you to read these few words? Just in the past few paragraphs? In the bunch of sentences? There could be a numeral answer to this, but I would like to state there is no limit to them. I cannot find where I read this (this must start to sound very illegitimate due to the lack of my ability to cite many sources) although, 'thoughts occur in the moment between moments.' This could be reworded a few ways, but to simplify it more you could also say thoughts do not take any time to be thought. There may be a moment before the thought is thought of, but individual thoughts (often chained together to appear as they take time to be thought of) are timeless. They happen between the minimal division of time. There is no limit to how many thoughts you can think of in a moment, and this is why the 0.09 second search is much slower than you may think it is. In the timeless moment it takes for you to search your entire muli-terabyte libary, you can recall one individual moment that may of happened millions of seconds ago. The only limiter on this that I can think of would be the speed the electrons (I beleive it is electrons, if not lets just call them the signals) can travel through your brain. This is just under the speed of light, and traveling at that quickly the tiny particles are going to experience a fair amount of time dialation, just to add one more level of complexity. If a photon (one particle of light) can travel 3.0x10^8 meters in one second, think of how quickly it can travel across your 0.2m (ish) brain!

And yes, I did take the nearest ruler and hold it infront of my head for a moment. The measurement won't be very accurate to the size of my brain, it should be smaller actualy. Also, a signal traveling through your brain may not have to go all the way across. It may only need to go to the next lobe, only 0.01m away. A final note on this, keep in mind you are firing several thousand, maybe million? No, I don't think quite million but I could be wrong, signals at a time. A thought may require a few of those to go the full distance across and a group is only as slow as its slowest members.

One a much lighter note I had a couple interesting experiences today relating to the fog. Another to some birds. I know I've seen it before, maybe the lighting was just perfect where I was, but I really enjoyed watching the fog roll in and overtake my school as I was waiting for the bus. It had been foggy on and off all day. Just a few minutes before it was sunny then another fog cloud rolled into the area. I just thought it was amazing how the movment of it all was so apparent. I could see the individual water drops in the air, along with the cloud look (well an actual cloud I guess) a bit further away. Fog as always ammused me a bit, the concept that just a few water drops close to you don't obscure your vission much but if you have just a few dropplets spread out over a large area you quickly run out of spaces between the drops and they pile up making it impossible to see even down the block.

When I was in my room doing homework after school a fog horn sounded, it was fairly loud considering the distance away it was (or I can only assume) and lasted a few seconds longer than I expected it would. The echo lasted a while, and continued to echo for much longer than expected also. I imagined the sound I was hearing was from such a distance away. An echo that reached me a second after the innital sound must of been over three hundred meters away, the echo that was a second later over six hundred fifty meters away maybe. It echoed many times, more than I've ever heard anything echo. I immagine the last few faint sounds I detected were from the other side of town, most likely only cut off there because of the forest. When I was on a walk later tonight, I heard another boat warn all around that it was there and I relized that the echos may of lasted for so long because there could of also been the sound of a boat replying that I missed. This would cause more echos.

Moments after this I was not focusing on much more than what I was listening to (when I think about it, all I really remember was the sound until I was interupted. An example of my memory being recorded at the time was focused on the sound only) a bunch of birds who had been singing out my window all flew away at the same time. The simutanious flutter of their wings made a noise that confused me at first and was the distraction that caused me to focus on what I saw also. I turned to my window quickly and through the slatted blinds I have closed almost always (and have recently put a poster up over one side of the window becuase I enjoy the way the light hightlights the highlights and some midtones in the picture) I saw the birds flying away. Just a slight glimps of them as the individuals who trailed behind slightly were leaving. This was mostly noticed in my less focused periferals, and I suppose I infered that the noise and black flash was caused by birds.

Well this turned out much better, and slightly longer, than I was expecing it to. I wish all of my posts were this easy to write. As I mentioned before I had something else I was planning on putting here today, but I will do this some other time. I'm glad I addressed this set of ideas soon as I was inspired to share them with the Internet. The walk I mentioned occured about half way through all of this. I was phoned and invited to join a few people, I told them I had recently started putting something on my Blog and wanted to finish some more before leaving it. I really dislike staring something and then leaving it only to pick up where I was. I would rather just start something and finish it in the same sitting. It worked out though, I put down notes of what else I wanted to add and borrowed a cell phone to message myself more thoughts I had to add to this to my Facebook's Inbox as I relized I forgot to add them when I had a chance before leaving.

I'm kind of proud, when I went to use the spell check that is on the Google toolbar, it told me that I had too many characters to check over all of it. I'm going to have to take a look to see how many characters there is, I'm sure it's not too long to copy and paste into Microsoft Word Processor. I'm sure it is notacable where my spell check dropped off, I don't feel like going out of my way to check the rest.

Please ignore the odd spacing between paragraphs, Blogger is not being friendly to me and not posting as I am telling it to do so do. I think I have it worked out now. I hope I do. I'm ready to give up on it and leave it at it's difficult to read state. For a moment I even thought I lost all of this.

Monday, October 18, 2010

It's almost Halloween, or so it seams. Soon as October comes around there is a slight hint of the last day for the full thirty one days. With it being Halloween, there must be a party or two that I could attend. At the moment I've been invited to two, but only intend on going to one. Misfortunately this one happens to be on Halloween day, or is it night? It is on the thirty first day of the month. I think this should be moved to the day before, Saturday, so I don't have to go to school the day after.

I intend on going to school if I go to the party or not, for so far I have a perfect attendance and maybe I can keep that? Last year I missed one day, it was disappointing but I was too sick to attend school and regret becoming sick for some time after.

I'm still curious why the party won't be moved to Saturday. The answer I've been given has been simple, because Halloween is on the thirty first so the party will be also. This is where I get to my main point.

You Don't Need An Excuse To Have A Party

Well, maybe. For now I will leave this statement resembling a title with too many capitals for emphasis. Why not move it a day back? I'm not just picking on this one social event that will be great no matter when it is. It just inspired to put my thoughts into words and express you don't need an excuse to do most anything. I'm sure there are exceptions, but why not have a birthday party four months after the day of the year of which you were born?

This is a very reoccurring situation for my family and relatives. They seem to wait for an excuse to have a party, though by my standards it is not a party. These events are more like a salutatory social gathering. They will look for a reason to have a gathering, look for an excuse to get together, give gifts, and eat cake.

Enough about my relatives and their ways that are not very logical by my view, back to expanding the excuse concept. Why do people look for excuses for events such as gatherings or parties? I understand, by definition of many, that having a limiting agent to parties is a good thing. Too much 'partying' may result in a bruised liver, and no one actually enjoy alcohol poisoning. What about those events that have a limited number of intoxicated individuals? Why wait for an excuse to have them? I think the idea of phoning up some friends and telling them to bring some snacks for everyone down to the beach and having a large social grouping is a great idea.

This is drifting away from the rough original topic; parties with an excuse. As I think this through more and put my thoughts to letters it has occurred to me that having parties frequently for no reason may take the fun away from them. Maybe all of that I previously stated was incorrect. It all boils down to a matter of opinion. Even if you are going to use an excuse for an event why can't it be moved around a bit? It's not up to me, so I guess I'll just show to to school on Monday tired. Maybe I'll just skip that sleeping thing. I have been wanting to pull an all nighter sometime this year, preferably soon, and see what it's like to go to school without sleep.

A while back I mentioned gifts, this is something else that has bothered me for a long time. Why give people gifts on Christmas and birthdays? The original meaning of Christmas has fallen apart into a pit of clever corporate schemes and constant calamity (Oh, I see what I did there). Even with the original concept of Christmas in mind, I see no place for useless gifts. This goes the same for birthdays. Why is an excuse needed to give someone something? If something is needed and you feel like providing the individual in need with something to fulfill this need why wait? I beleive if everyone followed this concept birthdays would be less special perhaps, though they would have less disappointment. Along with the disappointment that is often caused by birthday parties being eliminated there would be no more useless gifts given only due to a feeling of obligation due to someone living through one more solar cycle.

All of these statements could be caused by a root displeasure with my own experience surrounding Christmas and my birthday. There is always so much hype about the events and then when they occur I am not all very interested in it all. I have received far too many useless gifts that are stored away in my room and forgotten. I have chocolates on my shelf that I've been looking for a reason to eat from last Christmas (2009).

Maybe I should take my own advice and eat the chocolate with no reason. I just need some inspiration.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

I missed posting anything yesterday, but after a post a day for five days I feel as if I should put something here? I don't want to get into the habit of meaningless posts so I'm going to do my best to give this some meaning.

I've viewed most of the xkcd comics through the random button but I still run into comics I haven't seen before if I press it a few times. Sometimes many times. JapaneseStudentLife suggests I take a look at the webcomic Antics and has also given me the idea to put links on words that I think could use some links so I'm going to try this for a few posts and see how I like it. So far I haven't enjoyed Antics as much as I have xkcd, but I suppose if I keep pressing the previous button I may get into it a bit.

I enjoy dubstep, and far too many people don't know what it is. Dubstep is a musical genre with influence from Grime, Garage, Drums and Base, and a couple other genres (I would like to try to do my best at reviewing what dubstep is without searching, so be sure to do some of your own research later; and if you happen to fall in love with the great base lines, I would like to congratulate myself). If there are lyrics in the song it often resembles rap type lyrics but doesn't have to. The only time I enjoy rap fully is with a dubstep instrumental, I just don't like the simple beats of a normal rap. Dubstep is typical at a 140bpm tempo featuring a fairly simple kick and snare pattern. A key feature to dubstep is the 'drop.' The best way I can think of describing it is as an ossolating base. Using Fruity Loops Studio 8 (a music making program, you can download a demo for it for free and it works great once you know what you're doing with it. You can get newer versions but FL8 is my favorite) I would create a drop through using a low note stylus type interment. Then put a limiter on it (something that will cut out some frequencies) and set it to follow a sine-pattern (a simple wave that goes up and down, what you get if you graph a sine-function I think) type wave at a fairly high Hz (Hertz, how many waves per second I beleive). This creates a wobbling base effect. It's hard to describe; go and listen for yourself.

UKFdubstep on Youtube has a couple hundred dubstep songs uploaded. Many of them available at HD.

One of my favorite artists, who can also be found on youtube, is Kyphera. Much of his music can be downloaded for free and he is a very diverse artist. He has a couple dubstep mixes, megamixes actually. Take a bunch of songs, a large bunch of songs, and put them all together so they flow nicely. Before you know it I have 80 minutes of great quality sound and great quality music downloaded off the links provided on his videos and enough base to get me through class without saying a word to anyone if I want. Kyphera's dubstep mixes aren't as heavy as most dubstep, but I enjoy them still. I do enjoy a heavy base line often but it sounds amazing none the less.

Through typing this I have checked back and pressed the previous button on Antics many times. I think I might just continue reading this instead of playing my favorite first person shooter today. I have three hours until I'm going to a friends party, and I still need to have a shower. Some sleep would be nice.. Hmm.. maybe I can combine two of these three? These comics are getting to me already, I'm trying to put my thoughts into witty three pane series.

Spell checking this was stressfull. My computer doesn't recognize xkcd, dubstep, or Youtube. I also think I failed at making this not usefull, but by the time you get to this part and relize that also it will be too late. Enjoy your reading; it's good for your mind even if it isn't a good read I beleive.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I'm probably going to look back at the title of this and think to myself, "What was I thinking?" but until then I will enjoy it.

It happened again. That cute cat I mentioned yesterday, I met it again.

As I was about to leave to go home I noticed a squeaking at the window and quickly thought it may of been the cat that lingers in that area. I was right, it was rubbing the padding of it's front feet against the window beside the door.

Getting out was tricky, for this cat wanted to come inside. Once I was out I pet it a bit, then was off to go home. The cat, as I thought it might, followed me for a bit. The road I took was more lit this time, so I could see it a bit better. Despite my attempted escape by running the cat was persistent and quick to my heals. I decided not to run incase it continued to run and I stepped on it. It didn't take long for this creature to decide to turn around this time; though the thought of, "I really hope it doesn't follow me too far so I must bring it back," occurred to me again.

I also decided petting it was probably not the greatest idea, along with taking any roads that will have traffic because I would hate for it to turn around to go back home and to be hit by a car. Even if it wasn't my fault, I would be involved and I would hate for that to happen even if I wasn't involved.

About two blocks away I turned around, as I did many times to ensure I wasn't being followed by an extra stealthy feline, and saw a cat on the sidewalk about half a block away. I continued to walk slowly, I couldn't tell what way it was traveling. After a moment or two I decide it was a different cat. This one was larger, not by a large among but definitely larger. It also appeared to be orange but I wouldn't be able to tell in such lighting and distance.

I'm glad it was not the first cat I encountered, but the more I think about it the more I wish to give this cat a name. I wouldn't be surprised if I mention it many more times, and it needs a better name than Fuzzy-Grey-Young-Outdoor-Cat whom belongs to neighbors of my girlfriend.

I feel as if I should put something intellectual in here but nothing is metaphorically pressing on the inside of my skull wishing to be released. I've heard many times that listening to classical music is good for your brain, I am planning on getting some classical music and putting it on my Mp3 player and only listen to that. I will clear out all the music that is on it first though, so I am not tempted to go back to my favorite dubstep megamix. I will most likely do this once I clean the head phone jack that I think is dirty, but I could be wrong and the device itself may be the problem. I know it's not the headphones though. If it was I have a no questions asked warranty on them.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Time, it is just an abstract concept that is human invented. It can be manipulated, not consciously, but through the way we perceive it.

Note; this is all theoretical, proposed by the book I have now finished reading 'Is There Life After Death' by Anthony Peake (http://www.anthonypeake.com).

Think of a time you have been scared, not to the extreme of the most fright possible (I don't think many people achieve this though. I will address why below), but enough. Did you notice it appeared time slowed down for a moment? Now that you think back on it, did you think many thoughts despite the lack of time to process it all? For that split second when you were in the air did you think, "Oh, how should I land?" "That's concrete coming towards my face," "Oh, my bike is in the air above me." "The ground is closer now.. I'm going to hit it now." Maybe I'm special in this matter but this has happened to me several times.

This is because of a flood of chemicals your brain may release. They change the way you perceive time. Time is all subjective. For more on this, you may want to read my previous post about my perception of time. I may that be the title of it actually. With these chemicals you now observe time at, lets just say, half speed. For every one second that goes by for someone watching, you have two seconds to think.

When you enter a state of expected death, or what will soon be death, your brain releases more chemicals, many more chemicals (actually I'm not sure on this. It could be many more, it could just be different chemicals). These are very similar to chemicals released due to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) seizures, but I won't get into that. You'll have to read this book I've mentioned a few times to find out more about that. It's amazingly interesting, it almost made me wish I had TLE; but you won't be able to understand that unless you have knowledge of the topic or have read this book.I'm off topic. These chemicals change the way you observe time exponentially, or something like that. No matter how it is looked at, in the end time is going by very quickly. Lets say it is exponentially. After one second you are perceiving time at one half the speed of a third person observing you. After two you are processing the world at four times the normal rate. At three time is down to one eighth of a second. At four, a sixteenth; at five a amazing thirty-second of normal pace. That means for every one second that passes for an observer, you have what you view to be thirty two seconds.

To crunch the numbers more just look at 2^x; x being how many seconds have gone by. At 2^10 time is sluggishly sliding by at 1/1024 the normal rate (This is a number I must need to know for my Math 12 class). In one second of a third person observing you, you have had over 1000 seconds to think, that's getting close to sixteen minutes.

The only flaw I see within this idea is a near death experience may not last ten seconds; but the time interval of 'x' in the previous chunk of text may not be seconds. It may be a much smaller denomination of time. I don't want to get into this really, but I will add it to my list of ideas that always builds up in the back of my mind until some are lost and a bunch of them are spewed through my fingers onto the Internet.

However, I said I would go into the concept of the maximum you can be frightened. At the point of being as frightened as possible I think you would enter a state of calm. This was addressed in the book, it was about people who rock climb and have fallen large heights. They were at peace with the fact they were falling to what they thought to be their doom. Even if this is just a short two second drop, to them it felt like much longer, and through this time they had to think about what was happening far as I know the individuals mentioned didn't mind the fact they were falling. They didn't mind the fact they were going to die, they were calm. Maybe so scared they were calm? Just a thought.

Next topic; Time. How I don't have enough of it.

I've found I'm giving myself too much to do on top of what I already need to do. Eat, sleep, bathe. To crunch the amount of time I have to do all that I have homework. To chip away at that time even more I have ambition. I want to work in Photoshop for hours a day, I want to be social, I want to write, I want to read, I want to use the Internet as it should be (this will be another idea to be added to my list of ideas, however it was already there slightly), (I want to be able to put things in a better order than just what comes to mind but I don't want to put the effort into doing so at the moment), I want there to be more time in a day.

The day is broken up into twenty-four hours, this is due to the earth rotating around its axis takes this long. The amount of sunlight there is in a day varies according to the time of the year. The sun being up or down doesn't stop me from much, other than social activity is less likely to happen if the sun is down at times. During the Summer I would rather go out when it is dark. During the Winter I enjoy the sun's warmth. Our days are based around a twenty-four hour schedule.

What if there was more than twenty-four hours though? I would like to propose a thirty hour day. It's an easy number to work with, and in addition to that is convenient number in relation to twenty-four hours due to it being six hours extra. Six hours is one fourth of twenty-four hours, so thirty hours is five fourths of a normal day; just in case that helps the few readers of mine to understand this but I'm sure they will in the first place.

I think this would be great, if it happened over night it would be hard to get use to but still great. If it changed gradually, we would change gradually. If it was like this all along our days would still be stuffed to the brim I think. I would like to look at the over night change.

I have my daily routine set in place a little bit. It is far from a set in stone set of activities to work through in order to finish the day, but it is there a bit. More than a ball pit, less than soft sand (a heavy ball pit that is). If I suddenly had six hours extra what would I do? I think at first I wouldn't like it unless I had something to do. Who am I kidding? I always have too much to do. Filling this time would be easy.

That ball pit and sand idea is confusing to me, even as I read this over. It is how set my daily activities are.

Would I enjoy filling this time though? That's harder to say. I know I love my Digital Media class, and my classes are eighty minutes long. I've had a couple double classes, where I've spent the class before or after in the Digital Media room. This turns into a two hour forty minute work period and it's great as long as I enjoy what I'm doing. I've found I'm not enjoying my time in that class if I don't have anything to work on and not enough time to start a new project. The tutorials I'm working with take one to two hours often. I tend to finish them in forty to fifty minutes despite what I'm told as for time that will be consumed. If I have more time than I need I will finish my current project, fiddle with a couple ideas that I throw together just to see how they turn out, and then stumble or socialize. I don't like stumbling in class even though the teacher encourages it a bit, I just would rather get work done.

At times I find this extra time just is too much. My attention gets pulled off in another direction, for my attention span is fairly lengthy I beleive but sometimes I choose to pull it back. It isn't a conscious choice but I know it is a choice because I know if I have to continue concentrating I will.

So as long as I'm busy and enjoying what I'm dong, or atleast paying attention to it deeply, time goes by at a good rate and the extra time is used very well.

All this talk of extra time reminds me of polyphasic sleeping. It's a great thing. Google it, but it is also going onto the list of ideas. I really should write more of these down instead of trying to remember them all. These unplanned posts seem to spawn more and more ideas as I continue.

What would you do with six hours extra in a day? Polyphasic sleeping is a sleeping pattern that involves naps ever four hours, the time of the nap is often fifteen to twenty minutes. Your body trains itself to go into REM sleep quickly (ooh, sleeping. I know a lot about sleeping.. maybe I should add that to my list too.. ) so you don't need as much sleep. You get (I think) four hours extra to your day. It might be six. I'll figure it out later. Imagine polyphasic sleeping with six hours extra to the day already. That would be a lot of productivity. I must note though, with polyphasic sleeping the concept of days becomes a bit more abstract and harder to grasp because each day flows into the next very... fluidly.

I"m using a lot of ellipses. It's time to spell check and sleep in my, pfft, monochromatic sleeping pattern or what ever it's called. My sleeping pattern that is limited by ambition, and by things like this.

Kind of reminds me of "this is brought you to by" adds at the beginning or end of a show segment.

"This Entertaining Blog Entry Has Been Brought To You By: A Lack Of Sleep! And Also By: Oh No, I just Relized I Still Need To Have A Shower!"

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tonight I wanted to go for a walk with my girlfriend, so I did. On the way back to her house we encountered a cat. It was smaller than most cats but not extremely small. It appeared to be and acted like a younger cat. My girlfriend was very worried for it at first, thinking it was homeless due to a lack of a tag. She also thought it may be hungry because it was very attention disparate. Nothing that crossed my mind, but I've been around cats enough to know if that's true or not. She also mentioned something about wanting to keep it; that crossed my mind also. We boath left it, well tried to. It had a habit of running back after it was picked up and moved away.

The cat was young, fairly light but it was expected for its size. It's fur had the consistency of a cat that is outside, it was not patted down much. More fluffy and soft; but not soft due to being cleaned excessively. More like an outdoor cats version of soft. I'm not sure how to describe the difference but there is definitely a difference in the fur of cats who are indoor and outdoor cats.

I stayed inside for a bit, then saw it was time to get back to my house to finish my homework so I began to walk. I was not as surprised as I should be when something tackled my ankles soon as I walked into the dark, unlit grass.

A couple days ago something similar happened. On my way home in a similar area something small ran into my legs and quickly ran away. It ran at me again but I noticed it so it hesitated then ran off. I wasn't too worried, it appeared to be a playful dog at first thought.

Back to today; the cat had found me after I started to leave and was still playful as it was when I first encountered it today. It ran and jumped at me, then disappeared against the dark ground again. This happened a couple times until I figured out where it was and kneeled down to talk to it. It quickly rushed me and jumped on my face, in a very playful manner of course. It didn't use it's claws, but did put all four paws strait towards my body. It's face bumped against mine and it's soft fur rubbed against me before it was quick to dart out of view again. I'm glad I knew what it was, if I wasn't aware of what was rushing me I might of worried a bit more.

I got up and decided it would be best to keep walking, as I bid the cat farewell. I don't think it understood me very well. Now that I think of it I beleive talking to it may of just encouraged it to play with me. As I walked I was careful where my feet went to avoid stepping on it. I thought about just ignoring where I was walking because I've stepped on cats before, not purposely, and they are fine after a moment of displeasure. It would teach it to watch where I was going after all. I didn't want to do this though; I enjoy cats too much.

I got to the road, of course unlit. Not the best choice perhaps but I enjoy the dark. The cat must of been aware of how the shadows work because every time I turned around it would be paused in a the next shadow. I never saw it actually move. After about half a block I decided if it continued to follow me I would carry it back to its house and leave it to the owner. I'm not sure how old it is, I don't know if it's been at the house it lives at now long enough to know it lives there and needs to go back to it, so I was careful not to let it follow me too far.

After not too long I turned around to see I couldn't find the cat. This was the case for the next half block. At this point I decided the cat had gone back to look for my girlfriend, for she was very willing to give it the attention I was trying to avoid giving it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

In my Psychology class we watched Into The Wild and were given some questions to answer, such as follows:RespondOpinion, analyze, break down storyDo I agree with the main character, AlexanderDefine FreedomGive example of how to have a healthy sense of freedom

So these aren't really questions but I jotted down the important points so once I got to this; the day before.. after having five days to do it. I need to be less social. Here it is;

Into The Wild was an interesting film? I didn't like it much, the beginning of it was okay but didn't catch my attention. I wouldn't mind leaving at any time and working on Photoshop through the first sitting. The second part was much more interesting. I still would of preferred Photoshop but I would prefer it anyways often. This movie just didn't make me want to continue watching it at many moments. As a film it was okay, as a story it was better. The way the story was shown could of been done better, though I liked how it showed him at the 'Magic Bus' and him on his way to the 'Magic Bus.' It did a great job of explaining how he knew how to do what, though if I were to compare it to another movie that did this Slum Dog Millionaire showed how the main character got his knowledge and applied it to the questions far better than Into The Wild does. The story consists of finishing college, running away from everything, learning and preparing (a few parts within that), and actually being in the wilderness. The actually being in the wilderness part was neglected a bit, but this film was made to show before that. When he is finishing college is explained very quickly just so there is something to work off of. It introduces the character and sends him on his way. Running away from everything also fairly short, and the learning stage is cut into. At the end of the running away, or is it the beginning? Anyways Alexander (the main character, for I don't think I have mentioned his name yet) burns his money yet still ends up getting a job or two. I didn't really understand why that was, but at the time when he burnt his money it was fairly misleading I think. I thought it was a matter of 'this is it, money's gone, off to Alaska.' I found the learning and preparing stage to seem a bit forced. It was all needed innately but some of the side stories near the end were put there for story telling sake. Not because it was needed. All of it could of been presented better I think. The wilderness situation was presented well, though some issues were too short and other's much too long. I didn't need fifteen minutes of 'Oh no, my moose, I can't eat it!' and then three broken up minutes of 'Well, I'm going to die now.' If I were to give this film a rating, and that rating had to be based on thumb indication, this would receive a hesitant one thumb up.Onto freedom. Freedom is being free. It is having no limitations or boundaries except the ones you give yourself intentionally. If you have unintentional boundaries, you are not as free as you could be. Freedom is the ability to do what you want, when you want, how you want; all by your own judgment. There may be rules that state if you should or should not partake in various actions though I think in most situations you should be thinking through if you agree or disagree with them. I think to be free does not necessarily mean you can state you are free, but you cannot find anything hindering the fact. It is very easy to say you do what you wish to without limitation, but it is equilly more difficult to say there is nothing stopping you.

I was expecting this to be longer, perhaps my need for sleep is hindering my writing process although it usually doesn't. I find I do a lot more typing when I am tried than what I should be doing. I'm sure I will think of a better way to word my example of having a sense of freedom for that does not address the statement very well I suppose. This will be added later. Good night world.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

So during my Physics 11 class I thought up of a very interesting thought experiment of sorts and I have been planning on writing about it for about half a year now? No, less than that. Anyways I haven't gotten around to it yet but I will do that eventually and it will be put on this blog. This was inspired during my Psychology class, of which I tend to call by many different things such as Philosophy class. This is because at times it becomes just that. A lot of the time it becomes just that. This individual class that inspired this turned into one of these about half way.

We watched a documentary about how things are produced, and the negative side of it. All the waste, pollution, exploitation of people and land. It was fairly eye opening even though I had seen it before. We were told to write a one page long response to the documentary and then a small blurb about our perception of time. I did what I could to grind a one page reply out of my mind and then went to the time topic. It has been posted on this blog, I beleive titled 'My Perception Of Time' or something like that. During this class we got into the topic of philosophy and physics. I have a habit of pulling them into one topic and shifting from one and the other. I'm sure this will be apparent in my posts if I get to either topic. This went to the speed of light, the speed of light in a vacuum (c; 3.00x10^8m/s) and one of my friends in the conversation presented me with a thought experiment that blew my mind at first.

Say you are in space. You have a pole. This pole is 1 lightyear long. You are at one end of it. Your friend is at the other end of it. Keep in mind this is just a thought experiment, so many people look at this and go, "Pfft, you can not have a pole that long," and I would like to -Slap Them With A Blowfish- (This reminds me, check my Posterous; bugworlds.posterous.com for a post I will put up soon after this. The slap with a blowfish will be understood if you do) with the fact that it is a thought experiment. Einstein based much of his work off thought experiments and are very well known now, so don't blow this off for it's impossibility. It is meant for you to think. Back on topic; now you have this 1ly long pole and you have pushed it. I will poke your friend immediately, right?The answer to this is maybe. Keep reading.And to add a more interesting concept into this, assuming your friend is poked right away, did you just cause something to move faster than the speed of light?

At first I couldn't find a problem with this model. It seemed sound, but with some more thinking I had one of those realization moments I love, it was during math class, "Wait a second! When you translate a graph that is ten units wide, four units left you are only moving it four units left. Not ten units left. The individual points move, you don't consider it as a whole." I can't beleive I didn't realize this at first but I understood that his model was wrong. After some more looking into this and thinking I found more errors but this is the first one.

What is the distance between your friend and their end of the pole? Lets say it is 1m, and you have just pushed the pole 1m forward. The pole has only moved 1m. Every individual point has moved 1m forward. Not 1ly. Duh? Yes, duh indeed. This kills one idea of it, but doesn't the energy move the entire distance? It does.

Another thing to consider is if the pole has moved the 1m instantly, the light is still moving at c. That means the pole will be received instantly and a year later the image of you poking your friend will be received... Assuming they're looking the correct direction for the duration of your image pushing the pole. Since this is a thought experiment though, that does not matter. Back to the pole and it's moment, just keep the light traveling off you to your friend in mind.

The energy that you have added to the system (The system being closed and consisting of the pole. You are not part of it because you are just adding energy to it but not doing anything more so you can be viewed as adding a force to the system. Your friend is the receiving end of the system, so they might be part of it? It doesn't matter, just technicalities.) transfer the entire distance of the pole, the entire 1ly length, instantly. This is true only if the pole is perfectly ridged and does not warp. Misfortunately it is impossible to have perfect rigidbility and even if it was it might not apply still.

Even at small scale nothing moves instantly. It moves at the speed of a wave, a longitudinal wave I beleive due to the pole being a solid. It may appear to be instant, but that's just because you cannot notice the slight time delay because it is so slow. It is negligible. This wave, it will be at the speed sound will travel through the pole. For a better explanation on this I advise you check the links at the bottom. I am assuming the atoms in this have the same resistance as air at zero degrees celsius. Sound, at zero degrees celsius moves at about 332m/s. As air heats up or cools down the density of it changes and so does the speed. To avoid complications I"m assuming this pole has the same resitance that air has. Lets crunch some numbers, this following list is in no particular order.

1ly is aprox. 9.46x10^15m long.c is aprox. 3.00x10^8m/s.There are 315,366,000s in a year.The speed of sound at 0C is aprox. 332m/sAt this speed, sound will travel 1,047,015,120,000 meters in one year. That's 1 trillion, forty-seven billion, fifteen million, one-hundred-twenty thousand meters.At this speed, it will take aprox. 2.85x10^13 seconds for sound to travel the length of the poleThat can also be looked at as 4.75x10^11 minutes,Or 7,914,993,307 hours,Or 329791387.8 days,Or aprox. 903,538 years.To put this into perspective, we are in the year 2010. That's aprox. 450 times the length of our calendar (assuming our calendar has started at the time that has been given the title year zero). The world is aprox. 4.5 billion years old; or 4,500,000,000 years; so in 4.5 billion years light could travel this pole 4,980,421 times, that's 4,980,421ly. These numbers are starting to lose their point.

The number we need is the aprox. 903,538 years. Since it would take this long for sound to travel the length of the pole, and we are assuming the pole has the same resitance as air at 0C, then it will also take that long for the energy to go through all of the pole.

Because the pole is not impossibly rigid and the energy will travel through it as a wave the poke is not going to hit your friend right away. It will take the above time to do so. The image of you pushing the pole is still traveling at c.

If you poked your friend who is at the other end of a one light year long pole: One year after you push the pole your friend would see you pushing it. 903,537 years after that your friend would be poked.

Keep this in mind next time you poke someone with something. They don't get poked right away, there is a slight delay that doesn't matter at real world scales.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Not anything important, me just talking about a fun night and some longboarding stuff.

Tonight I had a great time longboarding with a friend. Bombed a couple hills, learned the beginning of a stand-up slide, discovered hopping is useless but fun, put a lot of strain on my already bad knees but by the morning it feels as if it will be better.Bombing a hill, from what I know is defined by going down a hill with no form of braking. Depending on how fast your going I find air braking at the end is great. Doing a slide at end once you've slowed down a bit is great but I can't do that, and also had no slide glove. I enjoy having flesh on my hands. If there is enough flat ground you will slow naturally. Foot braking is awesome also but is kind of hard on your foot at first.Slides in general is when you make the wheels slide sideways. Causes a huge amount of friction, and you slow down often to a stop. It can be done by putting your hands on the ground or doing a stand up, on the most part just pushing the back of the board sideways. Me and my friend figured out how to do them kind of. Ideally you want to turn 90 degrees to a stop, I can get about 30; not slowing down much though.Slide gloves are gloves so you don't tear your hand apart. Often just a work glove with a cutting board cut out and applied on the palm, fingers, and thumb. It works great. Extra friction to encourage a hard turn to lead to a slide, and allows you to lean as far as you want.Foot braking is essentaly dragging your foot on the ground to slow you down. It works well, I'm sure it's not good for your shoes at all.